The Independent Weekly’s view on the news
An update to yesterday’s post.
Here’s the aerial photo of 700 Durhamites spelling out “Google” at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, sponsored by the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.
View the full-sized photo at the official Web site.
And if you don’t know what this Google business is all about, check out the Indy’s recent cover story on the Google Fiber project. It could be coming to your town!
Supporters of Durham's application for Google's high-speed Internet project spell out the company's name. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange
Supporters of Durham’s application for the national Google Fiber project gathered at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park this afternoon to spell out the company’s name on the baseball outfield.
A photographer in a plane was schedule to fly over the field around noon to take a photo of the assembly. According to Sam Poley of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau, more than 700 people turned out for the event. There weren’t quite enough people to spell “We want Google,” he said. Just the word “Google.” The “We want” part will be added as text, said Poley, who is part of a committee working on Durham’s bid for the Google Fiber project. He hopes to release a photo shortly.
Durham is among hundreds of towns and cities nationwide who are vying for Google’s attention and hoping to lure the company to install fiber-optic networks that would allow for Internet connections at extremely high speeds.
See the Indy’s recent cover story and Durham’s Web site for the project for more information.
In a follow-up to our cover March 10 cover story, “Gaga for Google’s fiber,” we’d like to update metrics of the involvement of the Triangle’s top three participants.
Durham’s still ahead in Facebook presence, with 2,180 fans on its “Bring Google Fiber to Durham N.C.,” page, while 935 people have signed up for “Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh!”. The western part of the Triangle is not far behind: the Facebook group “Bring Google Fiber to Chapel Hill & Carrboro N.C.” boasts 906 members.
The towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and UNC-Chapel Hill, will hold a public forum at 7 p.m. today at Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., to receive public comment regarding community interest in the fiber optic trial and how residents would use an ultra-high speed Internet network.
On Thursday, Durhamites hope to make a splash by corralling thousands of locals into the Durham Bulls Athletic Park at 11 a.m. Thursday to spell out “We want Google” on the field, to pose for an aerial photograph. More here >>
Topeka municipal leaders renamed the town Google, Kansas. Others across the country are forming Facebook groups and bringing tech gurus together hoping to be selected for Google’s high-speed Internet project.
Chapel Hill, Carrboro and UNC are forming a joint task force, holding a forum and inviting residents to complete a survey.
The group is geared toward becoming a pilot community for Google Fiber, a program announced last month that seeks to build and test Internet service that’s one gigabit per second — 100 times faster than what’s available today.
To qualify, towns of 50,000 to 500,000 people must apply by March 26 and demonstrate that they have adequate resources and infrastructure to make the partnership successful.
The forum is set for 7 p.m. March 15 at Chapel Hill Town Hall.
Read next week’s Independent for a story on what else local municipalities are doing to try to woo Google.
Michael Vick, the NFL player convicted in 2007 for running an illegal dogfighting ring in Virginia, is speaking to a group of Durham students this morning at New Horizons Academy of Excellence on Hunt Street.
Vick, who now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, was sentenced to 23 months in prison for fighting and inhumanely killing pit bulls in the dogfighting ring. He has held other speaking events and made public apologies for his treatment of animals. He was scheduled to begin an assembly at New Horizons at 10 a.m. today.
New Horizons Academy of Excellence is an independent school that provides ongoing education and job training to middle and high school age students who have been long-term suspended, expelled, or have dropped out of Durham Public Schools.
Randall “Randy” Stewart, of Fox Run Court in Durham, filed Friday morning to challenge 10-term incumbent Rep. Paul Luebke for his seat in the state legislature. Stewart is the second Republican candidate to file for the N.C. House District 30 seat, prompting a primary race with newcomer Jason Chambers. Chambers filed late Thursday.
Mike Ashe, director of Durham’s Board of Elections, says this is the first Republican primary in Durham for N.C. House, at least in recent memory. Durham is a county where Democrats continue to make up a majority.
Candidates may file for office until noon today.
From Correspondent Rebekah Cowell, cross-posted from the Indy’s Scan blog:
In a packed Durham City Hall Committee Room early this morning, the Durham County Board of Adjustment voted unanimously in favor of issuing a special-use permit to The Broad Street Cafe.
For the past four years, Broad Street has operated as a nightclub in a district that is zoned so that such a special-use permit is necessary to host music after 10 p.m. Less than one year after the first noise complaint was filed by Clarendon Street neighbor Waldo Fenner, who was not present at this morning’s hearing, Broad Street officially received the green light on amping up their regional music bookings in a space that musicians and business owners says is vital to Durham’s art scene.
“Broad Street Cafe is important for more than just music,” says Melissa Thomas, founder of the Durham-based indie label 307 Knox Records. “It provides a great venue space for music, festivals and family events, as well as a place to eat for locals and visitors. This hearing just showed us today how much we all have built in Durham over the past five-plus years.”
Paul Brock, one of four Broad Street owners, says he’s relieved to finally get the permit. “I was very impressed with the board. They were gracious to us, and they asked very smart questions and got a feel for what we are doing,” explains Brock.
After a nearly five-year investigation, Durham police have charged Raven Abaroa, 30, with the 2005 stabbing death of his wife Janet in their Durham rental home. Janet Abaroa, who was 25 at the time, was pregnant with the couple’s second child when she was killed April 26, 2005.
According to a Durham police news release, Raven Abaroa was arrested at his Montpelier, Idaho, home without incident. He is being held in the Caribou County, Idaho, jail and is awaiting extradition to North Carolina.
Raven Abaroa, who was married to the victim for almost five years, has long been a “person of interest” in the case, but police continued their investigation. At the time of Janet Abaroa’s murder, Raven Abaroa said he had driven from Durham to Morrisville, N.C., to play in a soccer game. He said when he returned home at 11 p.m., he found his wife and she was dead. Their then-6-month-old son, Kaiden, was also inside the home but wasn’t harmed in the attack.
Students at the N.C. School of Science & Mathematics are hoping to break a world record on March 20 by gathering the most donations during a charitable food drive that lasts just 24 hours.
To break the record, donations must top 509,147 pounds of food. (Yes, that’s more than half a million pounds.) The food from the collection will be donated to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina.
To put that figure in perspective, that amount of food would last the food bank about a week, said Allen Reep, vice president of development for the food bank. But it’s going to take a lot of participants. Every year, the N.C. State Fair gathers canned food at its gates in lieu of a ticket fee, and that collection usually brings in about 250,000 pounds of food—less than half what NCSSM hopes to gather, Reep said.
Earl Pappy, former principal of Hillside High School, died Sunday, according to the brief obituary that ran in The News & Observer and a story yesterday in The Herald-Sun. He was only 51.
I, among others, was surprised to hear that Pappy died so young. Although the end of his three-year tenure was marked by controversy, the beginning was full of high hopes. Here, I’d like to share a 2007 profile (PDF) I wrote for The News & Observer about Pappy. In the month or so I spent shadowing him for the story, I was impressed by his polished affect and the taxing tasks he was taking on, between trying to reform a school and attending executive leadership courses to become a better principal.
Though some question the effect he had on student behavior and academic development at Hillside, there’s no question that the man tried tirelessly to bring about change.
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